Month: September 2015

Since our launch, over three years ago, we have been dedicated to finding sustainable solutions to the systemic causes of poverty. That commitment is at the core of our vision of social justice; that commitment is why we are community organizers.

One of the core philosophies shared by the Tatua staff and fellows is the idea that social change should not and in fact, must not, be delayed by the unavailability of monetary resources. All too often, community leaders with a vision, find their dreams stalled when they are unable to find financial backing for their projects. However, if social change is about true liberation, we need to get rid of the idea that the first step in addressing a community problem is to look for external sources of funding. This is why for our fellows, and us, the most important part of any campaign is building a firm and committed base of supporters.

However, the reality is as long as Tatua does not charge for our services, we need to continue to come up with creative ways keep our movement running. Like many community organizers before us, we have often struggled with the question of how to achieve financial sustainability without compromising our commitment to the grassroots. The process of mobilization can be slow, and our fellows need our help to get their campaigns off the ground. But if we as an organization exclusively seek grant money to support them, we are failing to model grassroots resource mobilization for our fellows.

This dilemma led us to begin to question how we understood our relationship to fundraising, and more importantly, how we engage our own support base. Thus the idea of the #PowerTheBase was born.

Crowd funding is more than just about raising money. It is about bringing together the community of people who believe that the work you are doing is important, and having them say, “Yes, I want to be part of this work.” With a crowd funding campaign, every donor becomes committed to the work and accepts to share a vision for change. With each donor, we will not only energize and facilitate the work of our fellows, but we also solidify the base of our own community. The base that will be a part of building the movement that we envision.

Therefore, today we launch the #PowerTheBase campaign. We invite you to stand with us as we energize the grassroots. We invite you to join the movement for genuine social transformation. We invite you to #PowerTheBase.